


rough night

by CiaranthePage



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: But Damn If Taako Isn't Going To Try, Child Murder, Comforting People Is Hard, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 21:41:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21435139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CiaranthePage/pseuds/CiaranthePage
Summary: Taako hadn’t meant to fall asleep, nor did he entirely realize what woke him up, only that he blinked awake to find his wand gripped in one hand, the other still partially buried under his pillow. There was a figure at the end of his wand, standing in the bedroom doorway. A familiar figure, one that made Taako drop his wand onto the sheets and crawl out of bed. Kravitz was home, finally, but something wasn’t right. Normally when Kravitz got home late, there were tight hugs and sleepy kisses and murmured conversations as they cuddled. But Kravitz seemed frozen in the doorway, his eyes a million miles away and his body visibly trembling.
Relationships: Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 133





	rough night

**Author's Note:**

> hello friends!! this is a rewrite of the last thing i wrote in 2017, also called [Rough Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13227141), bcus i liked the idea too much and wanted to see how much of a difference two years made  
if you read that one (or are coming back from reading it) then thank you for all of the kind words y'all've left on that fic over the years <3  
if you haven't read that one, then hey! welcome to this fic for the first time  
i hope you enjoy!! <3

Taako hadn’t meant to fall asleep, nor did he entirely realize what woke him up, only that he blinked awake to find his wand gripped in one hand, the other still partially buried under his pillow. There was a figure at the end of his wand, standing in the bedroom doorway. A familiar figure, one that made Taako drop his wand onto the sheets and crawl out of bed. Kravitz was home, finally, but something wasn’t right. Normally when Kravitz got home late, there were tight hugs and sleepy kisses and murmured conversations as they cuddled. But Kravitz seemed frozen in the doorway, his eyes a million miles away and his body visibly trembling.

Taako hadn’t even known he _could _tremble like that, enough that his muscles were tight under Taako’s hands. He was cold, colder than he’d been in ages, and it seemed like he was shivering under the weight of his own body.

His ears flopped down, nearly pinned to the sides of his head, his tail twitching. Unsure of what else to do, Taako cupped Kravitz’s face in his hands, running his thumbs over his cheeks and trying to bring him back to the ground. Kravitz’s hands rested on his wrists, and he didn’t so much drift back into his body as he did crash into it, his eyes snapping back into focus only for him to bury his face in Taako’s shoulder and take a few shuddering breaths, the kind that rasped in the back of the throat, the kind that came before tears.

“Kravitz?” managed to get out of Taako’s rapidly closing throat.

Kravitz gave no reply. He only wrapped his arms around Taako and squeezed him tighter, his breaths still raspy and now unnatural. Taako had heard him make the sound once before when he was stranded halfway between flesh and bone forms, trying to breathe and speak through a throat that only half existed. It wasn’t a pleasant noise to hear. Taako wrapped his arms around Kravitz and held him, rolling sentences over and over in his head and trying to find the one that’d make this okay. Kravitz always seemed to have one or two, responding to Taako’s distress with calm logic and goofy smiles. Taako couldn’t think of anything. Hugging it out it was, at least for however long it took Taako to come up with something to say, anything at all by this point.

"You're home late," Taako tried, twirling one of Kravitz's locs around his finger. Nothing. “Everything… go okay?”

Kravitz’s fists tightened in his shirt. That was probably a no. Getting more information out of him was unnecessary, considering they were still just standing in their bedroom doorway and Kravitz sounded like he could break down into tears at any moment. Taako hugged him tighter, enough that the chill radiating from Kravitz was starting to hurt. He shook the feeling off, running his fingers through Kravitz’s hair, humming something directionless deep in his chest, waiting for the moment to whisper, “You’re still in your black-tie ensemble, babe, how about changing into something more comfortable?”

The only response was something that could have been a shrug, but might’ve been Kravitz trying not to cry. Taako took it as a yes and shifted to brush Kravitz’s bristling feather cloak off of his shoulders, watching it disappear into a familiar cloud of black smoke before it hit the ground. His arms wrapped back around Kravitz and he took a step back toward their wardrobe, trying to go slow enough that Kravitz could get the idea and follow his footsteps. One step at a time, one foot at a time, the shuffling noises echoing through the room louder than they should’ve, Taako moved them to the wardrobe. And there they stood. Kravitz didn’t want to move, and Taako wasn’t about to force him, not yet; technically, Kravitz could just summon new clothes, like he probably had that morning, but he didn’t seem mentally ready to do it. Taako’s heart was pounding, loud enough that Kravitz could probably hear it, since he was pressed against his chest, but maybe that would be invigorating, the way it was early in their relationship, before Kravitz’s heart learned to move on its own. He was still so cold.

“Kravitz?” Taako mumbled into his hair, trying to suppress how it wanted to break. “Are you with me?”

A beat of silence. Their eyes met and Kravitz managed a nod, even with tears shining in the corners of his eyes and his breathing still rasping against the night air.

Taako slowly let go of Kravitz, accidentally loosening the grip Kravitz had on him. He put a hand on the doorknob, waiting. Kravitz didn't look up so much as over, his breathing moving back from the edge of crying. Taako pulled the door open and grabbed the first clothes his hand touched: some sweatpants that were probably a gift left behind, considering the fire decals on the legs, and a shirt that had definitely been Magnus's at first, judging by the size and the dog printed on the front. Comfortable stuff. He held the pile out and pressed it into Kravitz's hands, resting their foreheads together. Kravitz gripped it against his chest, squeezing his eyes shut to take a deep breath. “Stay with me,” Taako said as he massaged his shoulders.

The silence was only broken by their breathing and the soft swish of Taako’s tail through the air for a few moments while Kravitz collected himself. He pulled away once some of the trembling had subsided and moved to sit on the bed, still silent and staring at some point far beyond their bedroom floor. Taako waited where he was standing, arms wrapped around himself. He wanted to sit with Kravitz, absolutely, he wanted nothing more than to wrap himself around Kravitz and get that look off of his face, but something held him back, twitching and trying to figure out his next action.

Kravitz went through the motions of getting dressed for bed, each movement practiced and only slightly hindered by the way his hands were still shaking. His clothes disappeared before they hit the floor, just as his cloak had, but Taako could understand that it wasn’t the clothes themselves but the motions of normalcy, those little things that never changed, that could ground you when everything seemed so far away. And then he was dressed and if not for how he was shaking, it could’ve been any other night. His shoulders twitched, and Taako couldn’t take it, pushing back against whatever had been holding him and slid onto the bed from the other side. He couldn’t be sure if he grabbed Kravitz or if Kravitz dived into him but somehow they met in the middle, Kravitz halfway curled into a ball sitting in Taako’s lap, Taako holding him tight to his chest, two heartbeats instead of one racing each other to some imaginary finish line. Maybe if he hugged him tight enough Kravitz would warm up, Taako prayed to no god in particular. Kravitz always said he felt so much better when he was warm.

“It was --” Kravitz choked on his words, his breathing raspy as tears started to escape his eyes, falling down his cheeks.

“No, no, Krav, you don’t have to explain,” Taako assured him, taking one of his hands and holding it between them, the way Kravitz always did.

Kravitz shook his head, pulling back from the hug to look Taako in the eyes (or almost in the eyes, it was hard to tell) as the tears started falling quicker, quicker, threatening to overflow completely. “I. I can’t just. I don’t want to keep this...” he tried a few times, wiping his tears with his free hand.

Taako didn’t have a response, so he just nodded, still holding his hand, still willing for whatever god was in charge of this kind of thing to warm Kravitz up.

“It was children,” Kravitz managed. “We’ve been tracking a cult, and they… we couldn’t get them all, and we tried so hard, but. The blood magic, they.” And then he broke.

He was a quiet crier, not sobbing as much as coughing sporadically, which tore at Taako’s heartstrings as if he were crying out in pain. He buried himself in the crook of Taako’s neck, gripping his shirt with one hand and squeezing their linked hands. There wasn’t anything he could do; he felt so powerless, and some part of his brain wondered how much Barry and Lup had seen, if they were this shaken up, if breakfast was going to be --

No. No, he had to stay focused on the love of his life sitting in his lap, crying and turning to him for help. He had to be there to help, not wandering down a road of theoreticals.

But if Taako been at a loss for words before, he was really stranded now. What could you say to that? “Sorry that you had to see the cold-blooded murder of children?” “Sorry you couldn't save them all?” That was ridiculous, and no matter how he phrased it in his head it sounded so callous (and why did people even say “sorry” for things they hadn’t done?). What would he want to hear, in this situation? What had he wished someone had said to him, in a long-distant accident?

“You… did what you could,” Taako decided on, massaging the spot on Kravitz’s back where he knew Kravitz was most sensitive. “They’ll… You took the cult down, right? The kids… they’ll be at peace.”

Kravitz sniffled, nodding against his chest. “The leaders got sent to the Eternal Stockade,” he mumbled, something like an afterthought.

“Exactly,” Taako assured him. “They got what was comin’ to them.”

He got something like a chuckle out of Kravitz and his heart fluttered a little. Better. Kravitz had mostly cried himself out, he’d stopped trembling, and while he wasn’t warm the temperature coming off of him was no longer painful. Progress, all progress, and the only thing left to do was guide Kravitz through the rest of his mental release. If only he could keep making him laugh and fix it all.

Taako pressed a kiss to his forehead and tried rubbing the back of his hand with his thumb, mumbling, “Are you feeling better?”

Kravitz chewed on the question, watching Taako rub his hand. “I don’t know,” he decided on.

A feeling Taako knew well. "That's okay," he said. "You don't have to."

His ears finally loosened from the sides of his head, swiveling to check the room as Taako hummed in thought. "Hey Krav," he murmured after a few minutes, "you should get some sleep."

“Love, I don’t know --”

Taako’s shush was gentle; to an outsider, he wouldn’t have been worth the brainpower to process. "Just a nap. You've… you've had a long day."

Kravitz shifted to intertwine their fingers better, rolling the idea over and over in his head. “What about you?”

Technically, Taako didn’t need much more sleep. He’d crashed waiting for everyone to get home for who knows how long, and everything had left him buzzing and wide awake. But he couldn’t leave, so, “I’ll be here.”

Kravitz’s reply was a soft hum; he was thinking, but Taako didn’t ask about what. The air fell quiet as they shifted, Kravitz lying under thick blankets and Taako sitting next to him, their hands still intertwined. Which Taako was fine with; his brain started to branch out, wondering if he had any books left in the nightstand -- he liked cuddling, always, but sometimes one didn’t appreciate close contact after intense emotion -- until he felt a quiet touch and he was being asked for a kiss, and the kiss was light but it pulled him under the blankets, tied together with Kravitz and delighting in the heartbeat that matched up with his. And Kravitz was warm. Finally warm.

“I love you,” Kravitz murmured to Taako’s neck.

“I love you, too,” Taako replied, hiding his smile in the top of Kravitz’s head.

He wasn’t sure how much Kravitz heard; he seemed to be asleep before the words had left Taako’s mouth. No matter your mortality status, it seemed, crying was exhausting.

Interesting. Or it would’ve been, had Taako’s brain not pulled him under as well.

**Author's Note:**

> hello again! i hope you enjoyed this fic, and possibly seeing how far i've come! considering this is almost double what the original was, i'd say! decently far  
if you'd like to see more of my work, original work, chat, or just see what's up with me, you can find me at my tumblr [thegempage](https://thegempage.tumblr.com/) or my twitter [@achillopal](https://twitter.com/achillopal)!!! have a good morning/day/afternoon/evening/night!!


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